Traveler

by L. E. DeLano

  My eyes shift to the mirror over the dresser. And I think that smile may not only be mine.

  23

  The Man with the Secret Past

  When I get to school on Monday, I discover that just this morning, through a series of coincidences, Finn’s paperwork arrived at the school and he was admitted as a transfer student, despite the fact that a parent wasn’t with him and he didn’t come from whatever school they put down on the paperwork. Everyone in the office remembers meeting Finn’s mother, though, so they’re sure she must’ve stopped in and filled out everything that needed to be signed.

  The coincidences continue as Finn shares my schedule exactly, even lunch period and electives. I don’t know if this is good or bad. On the one hand, he can keep an eye on me, but on the other hand, I’m finding it hard to concentrate.

  Seeing him in the office as I walked into school this morning was a wonderful and unexpected surprise that I plan to take full advantage of. I gallantly offered to show him where his calculus class was, since I have the same class, too. Mrs. Cerino in the office gave me a smile and shooed us along, out into the hallway.

  The morning passes uneventfully until we encounter history class, and by default, Ben. To say he is less than thrilled to see Finn would be a serious understatement.

  “What’s he doing here?’ he asks bluntly.

  “I transferred in,” Finn replies. “Just today.”

  “You knew about this?” Ben asks me.

  “Of course she did,” Finn says, before I can get my mouth open. “And as luck would have it, our class schedules are the same.” He says it with a smile, but even I can read the warning in his eyes. He’s as much as telling Ben that I’m under surveillance. Ben seems to bristle.

  “Great,” he says through his teeth, and then he stomps over to take his seat.

  He sits next to me like there’s a storm cloud over his head, and it gets darker the more my gaze strays across the room to where Finn is sitting. I don’t suppose I could ask Ben if he’d change seats with him—that definitely wouldn’t go over well.

  When the bell rings for the next period, Ben is out of his seat and gone before it even finishes echoing down the hallway. I wait by the door for Finn to join me.

  “He was a ray of sunshine,” Finn points out. “Did he even say a word to you during class?”

  “No.” I glance out the doorway, hoping to catch a glimpse of Ben at his locker. Suddenly, I’m feeling kind of bad. I miss my friend, and I’m obviously hurting his feelings, but there’s not much I can do about it. Not while somebody’s trying to kill me, anyway.

  “I’ll text him later,” I say, biting my lip.

  We turn the corner and walk into creative writing, where Ms. Eversor’s eyes light up as she gets an eyeful of her newest student.

  “Hello!” she calls out gaily. “But who is this? Are you my new pupil?”

  “I’m Finn,” he says, extending his hand.

  “Finn!” Her French accent makes her pronounce it funny. Like she’s saying Feen. “I am Ms. Eversor, and this is l’écriture créative—creative writing! Oh, we have such fun!”

  She claps her hands, and the multitude of jangling bracelets she always wears sounds a loud cacophony that gets everyone’s attention.

  “Class! This is Finn!” He flushes, a little embarrassed at all the attention.

  “You must forgive us, Finn,” she explains. “It is so rare that we have anyone new, you see. So we make the most of it when it happens.” She gestures him over to the empty desk next to mine, and then she moves to the whiteboard as he takes his seat.

  “Today,” she begins, “we play a game! When I was a young girl, growing up in Côte d’Ivoire, the Ivory Coast, we played a game to pass the time. We would tell each other stories about our lives, but they would be fanciful, you know? Not true, but maybe more like wishes. Some good, some bad. And when a stranger came to town, it was delicious! We could make up such stories about them, you see, because we didn’t really know them. And because we didn’t really know them, the stories just might be true. So to honor our new friend Finn, we tell his story today, in five hundred words. And Finn, you tell us your own story, and we will compare. Your story, of course, can be anything! Real or fanciful, you choose.”

  She puts the marker to the whiteboard and writes Finn’s Story.

  “So,” she says. “Finn’s story. Begin!”

  I look over at him conspiratorially, wondering just which Finn he’s going to pick to be. He gives me a sly look, and then he cups his hand around the corner of his paper so I can’t see what he’s doing. I shoot him a mean look in return, and I write.

  His name was Finn, and he was known far and wide for his elegant cheese soufflé. He arrived in the small town bearing a whisk and an attitude, and no one knew quite what to make of him. He was as cool as a cucumber under pressure, which seemed at odds with the usual passionate temperament of the average egomaniacal chef. What no one knew was that under that calm exterior was a secret.

  Finn was a double agent. Sent by spies from the most famous waffle chain in the south, Finn had a mission: Get that recipe for apple spice pancakes, or die trying.

  Good God. That was awful. Let’s try that again.

  The stranger found a home in the trunk of a giant oak tree. She didn’t notice him at first, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, since he was barely a foot in height. It wasn’t until she poked her toe at the strange mound of dirt covering the pot of gold behind the tree that she realized who she was dealing with, or rather, what.

  “A leprechaun?” Finn hisses, apparently having poked his nosy nose over toward my paper. “You’re making me a leprechaun?”

  “You have a problem with the Irish?” I ask, looking innocent.

  He shakes his head and rolls his eyes at me simultaneously. “Write whatever you want,” he says in a low voice.

  “Thank you,” I whisper sarcastically. “I’ll do that.”

  “Just know that there will be repercussions … Emeline.”

  I shoot him another dirty look. I thought the leprechaun thing was genius, personally. I’ve got a magical creature, the whole angle of the wishes to play on, and I was going to give him a cute little Irish accent, too.

  My pen stops on the paper as a voice echoes in my memory. I do love a woman with gumption, he’d said, in that sexy Irish lilt.

  My pen starts to move, and I lose myself in the telling of his story.

  He was only sixteen the night his father died, leaving him alone with the ship. His mother had gone long before, never caring for a life on the water as her men did. He was born with the sea in his veins and the smell of the salt in his hair. There was no place to call home now but the ship that was his birthright, and the crew that followed him as easily as they’d followed the man who left it to him.

  His status as a privateer opened doors for him around the globe, but the people he met were the real reason he made the trip. So many stories. So many far-off lands and delicious foods. So many blazing sunsets and glorious sunrises viewed from a rooftop, a garden, a mountain, or the deck of a dipping and cresting ship. His life was out there, and he reveled in it. Nothing could match the freedom of the open sea and the sun on his sails.

  I look up a moment, with the top of my pen sliding back and forth across my lower lip as I think. I realize a startled second later that Finn is not only looking at me—or should I say, at my mouth—he’s glaring.

  He starts writing, and I lean over to look.

  “Uh-uh,” he says. “It’s a surprise.”

  He shifts in his seat so he’s practically got his back to me, balances his notebook on his lap, and starts to write.

  “Fine,” I whisper. “Be that way.”

  “Fine,” he answers, over his shoulder.

  “Fine,” I say again, just so I can have the last word.

  And I wonder what he’s going to do to get back at me. I catch myself rubbing my pen against my lips again, and I blush before
I put my pen back down on my paper and finish my story.

  24

  The Setup

  “I thought I would have seen you last night,” I say to Mario, who has just entered the classroom and taken his seat at his desk.

  “You needed the rest,” he said. “I sent you that great dream about the beach instead.”

  “Thanks. So … how was my first job?”

  “I’ll let you know,” Mario replies, smiling at me. “So far, so good.”

  I have to know. “What’s so great about that book? It looked like a trashy romance novel or something.”

  “Oh, it is,” Mario says matter-of-factly. “But if she reads it, she’ll relate to the main character, who has a sister who means the world to her. She’ll decide that she needs to call her sister, who she hasn’t talked to in a long while. And that needs to happen.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  Mario shrugs. “It just does.”

  “Well, that’s … cryptic.”

  “Don’t try to figure it out,” Mario advises. “It’ll just make your head hurt. Leave that stuff to me.”

  I’m not so sure about this blindly-following-orders stuff. How do I even know what my actions have done, really?

  “You’re asking for a lot of trust here,” I point out. “How do I know I didn’t just start World War III or something?”

  “It is a lot of trust,” he agrees. “But I’ve been doing this a very, very long time. And I have no reason to try to bring about an apocalypse. If you’re ever uncomfortable with an assignment, you only have to discuss it with me. I’ll do my best to allay your concerns.”

  My fingers trace the edge of my desk, and my voice is quiet—and maybe a little accusing. “You didn’t warn me that my mom would be dead—in the other reality, I mean.”

  “You weren’t supposed to be there very long,” he says, crossing his arms and giving me a pointed look. “I didn’t think it would come up.”

  “It came up the minute I got back and felt everything she was feeling. A little warning would have been nice.”

  “You have to be prepared for absolutely anything,” Mario reminds me. “And you have to keep going, no matter what gets thrown at you.”

  I lift my chin and glare at him. “So I can expect more of this kind of stuff?”

  “You can expect nothing but this kind of stuff. You’re dealing with realities forged by choices that were never made in your world.” His voice softens. “Every choice comes with consequences, Jessa. Every choice.”

  I lean back in my chair. “Speaking of consequences … what about accidents? If a truck decides to plow me down on a crosswalk while I’m in another reality, what happens to the other me? I mean, who dies? Her or me?”

  “You die, in her body.”

  “And the other Jessa comes back to her reality?” This is seriously confusing.

  “No. Once you’ve physically died in your reality of origin—no matter where you were when it happened—you can’t get yourself back there again,” he says. “Which highlights again the need for caution when traveling.”

  “What about a reality that I don’t exist in? We can go to those like Finn does, right?”

  “There’s an important distinction here that needs clarification,” Mario says. “You can go into a reality that you’ve never existed in, but you can’t go to a reality that you’ve died in. It causes too many ripple effects.”

  “So if I’m out traveling and the other me jaywalks in front of a bus or something, I’m just stuck?”

  “You’re a Traveler,” Mario reminds me. “You’re not ‘stuck’ anywhere. You’ll still be able to shift; it just alters your origin. Can’t have you roaming around someplace where you’re supposed to be dead. Not that some Travelers haven’t tried.”

  “Really?” I lean forward, fascinated.

  Mario shrugs. “It’s happened on occasion. You have to enlist another Traveler to pull you through if it’s a reality you’re blocked from. Then people write up ghost stories and your Dreamer has to do damage control.”

  “What if it’s nothing serious? What if other me just likes it better at my house and won’t trade back?”

  “Sometimes a Dreamer has to give somebody a nudge, but it would be useless to argue. Your Dreamer would just read you the riot act when they see you. You can’t stay awake forever.”

  “You’d give us nightmares?”

  “We’ve got power over your subconscious mind, Jessa. You cannot imagine the havoc we could wreak if we wanted to.”

  I’m really starting to grasp how primitive people considered the Dreamers to be gods. He’s right—their kind of power could be a really terrible thing in the wrong hands. I don’t plan on breaking any rules if I can help it.

  “I’m going to have Finn working with you on refining your transfers,” Mario says, pushing out from behind the desk. “I can give you all the theory and the rules behind it, but he’s got the practical know-how that will help you sharpen your skills.”

  He waves his hand, and the whiteboard behind him comes to life.

  “Are you ready for your next assignment?”

  “Go ahead,” I sigh.

  The scene is an unfamiliar pizza parlor. The place is enormous, with two levels of seating and a stage for a live band to play in the corner. There is even a bar. It couldn’t possibly be in Ardenville. We’re too small for a place like this.

  “Where is that?” I ask Mario. “It can’t be in my town.”

  “It’s your town, but it’s called Greaverville. The Greaver family is very prominent and owns most of the town, including this place. By the way—the drinking age was reduced to sixteen here sometime back in the forties.”

  “So they funnel their money into pizza parlors?” I still can’t believe this place. There’s an arcade room off to the side, an entire sports-bar area with pool tables and dartboards and big-screen TVs, and what looks like an enclosed ball pit and play area for kids, too.

  “Greaverville is five times the size you know Ardenville to be,” Mario says. “The Greavers worked hard to put this place on the map and are known for their shrewd but ethical business practices. They’re a far cry from the Greaver family as they were in your history.”

  “The name is familiar,” I admit. “Greaver’s Mill Road is where I used to go for piano lessons before I told my mom I was quitting. And I think there was a Greaver’s store or something, wasn’t there?”

  “There was a Greaver everything in your town at one point,” he tells me, leaning back against his desk. “They owned the local mercantile, the lumber mill, the zinc mine, the racetrack, the waterworks, and according to some scandalous newspaper articles, they owned the mayor and half the judges in the area as well—that is, until the empire crumbled around them.”

  “What brought them down?”

  “Shoddy construction. Bad labor policies. Too many payoffs changing hands. That kind of stuff.” He gestures at the board again. “They were a little better at business in this reality.”

  “So why here? What’s the job?”

  “Another easy one,” he says, “piece of cake. You see that woman with the two young boys over there?” He gestures toward their table. “I need you to spill your drink on the youngest boy.”

  “Just … walk over there and dump a drink on him?” I clarify.

  “Not like that.” He looks annoyed. “Make it believable. Trip or something. But make sure it hits the kid full-on in the chest.”

  I feel kind of bad about this one. The poor kid’s going to get soaked, and his mother is going to have to deal with it. I watch them and my face must show my reluctance, because Mario makes a tsk-ing sound and shakes a finger at me.

  “Remember the greater good,” he says. “I wouldn’t have you do it just to do it.”

  “I would hope not.”

  “Now let me show you the bathroom, so you know what to look for in the mirror.”

  “When do I go?”

  “Tomorrow after school. Go strai
ght home, make the transfer.”

  “No surprises this time,” I warn him. “Is everybody alive and well over there?”

  He thinks a moment. “Yes. But I meant what I said earlier, Jessa. You have to learn to roll with whatever you get handed.”

  “Whether I like it or not?”

  He gives me a noncommittal shrug as I walk over to the red door.

  “Keep it simple,” he reminds me.

  I step through the door, and when I wake, I wonder how he can ever think that a life like this is simple.

  25

  Dirty Job

  I stare at myself in the mirror and watch as my face changes slightly—the makeup gets heavy and turns very goth-looking, with a lot of black eyeliner. I have an eyebrow piercing. And bangs—ugh! I step through into the bathroom at the pizza parlor.

  I give myself one more glance in the mirror, shaking my head, especially when I remember the entire notebook full of sad, death-related emo poetry that’s in my bag. I wrinkle my nose and step out of the bathroom.

  I’m early, so I kill some time by ordering a slice of pizza to go with my soda. I toy with the idea of getting a beer or a glass of wine since I can, but I decide I’d better keep my wits about me.

  It’s been at least three-quarters of an hour, and I’m about to call it quits when they finally walk in. The mom looks nice enough, and the boys look about ten and six. The younger one is sitting on the outside, making my job easier.

  “Right. I can do this,” I tell myself.

  I stand up, grab my soda, and walk like I’m heading for the bathrooms, with a slight detour by their table. I do a pretty credible job tripping—mainly because I really do start to trip once I try to fake it—and I end up throwing not only my soda at the kid, but my whole self as well, knocking him over in his chair as I go staggering.

  He starts shrieking almost immediately, and it’s a horrible sound, like I’ve seriously injured him, and I am terrified. I run back to him immediately and his mother is right next to me, pulling him up and into her arms.